Computers and related peripheral equipment, as well as satellite and communication systems evolve extremely rapidly. These systems require ever increasing data transfer rates to drive the systems, such as digital signal processing, image analysis, and communications. With current data demands, optical couplers are used to transfer signals over short and long distances between computers, between two circuit boards in one computer, and even between multiple chips on a single printed circuit board. The use of high-speed optical signals in place of electrical interconnections increases the achievable data transfer rate. Ethernet is an example of a wired technology that transmits data by interfacing with optical systems through a variety of media including backplanes, twisted pair cable, twinax, multimode fiber and single-mode fiber.
To achieve higher data transfer rates, the density of optical arrays must be increased. Increasing density requires smaller optical arrays and more precise axial alignment of emitter and detector in fiber connections. As a result, the mechanical connection means of establishing and maintaining these precise connections are becoming more complex and increasingly important. Fiber optic connectors are therefore of great interest in the current art. As such, improvements are always welcome in the ease of manufacturing, installing, maintaining, and upgrading such connectors.
A pluggable transceiver module is an optical transceiver that typically houses both light emitting devices such as vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSEL's) and light detecting devices such as photodiodes in a mechanical housing that can be removably attached to a computing device such as a circuit board or PCB. Driver and receiver circuitry modules, typically in the form of application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips, include driver circuitry for receiving electrical signals from one device and driving VCSEL emission in response. The ASIC also includes receiver circuitry for receiving signals from the photodiodes and, in response, processing said signals into an appropriate output. The combination of the VCSEL's, the photodiodes, ASIC circuitry, and mechanical housing is referred to as an optical transceiver.